


and this body, transformed (one more time mix)

by renquise



Category: VIXX
Genre: Bodyswap, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-20 11:18:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11919783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise
Summary: When Sanghyuk found himself in Hakyeon’s body, it was his hands that kept on throwing him off.





	and this body, transformed (one more time mix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alunsina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alunsina/gifts).
  * Inspired by [And this body, transformed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9037214) by [alunsina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alunsina/pseuds/alunsina). 



When Sanghyuk found himself in Hakyeon’s body, it was his hands that kept on throwing him off. 

Okay, yeah, the entire body-switching thing was freaky and it was a lot of trouble trying to keep the entire thing under wraps, especially when they both had heavy schedules. It wasn’t as if it was hard being in Hakyeon’s body. It worked just fine. But he kept on grabbing his phone and messing up his keystrokes because his fingers were shorter, or reaching for something and staring at his hands until Taekwoon came up to him and jostled his shoulder to snap him out of it.

Hakyeon’s hands were nice, capable-looking and strong, but Sanghyuk had never realized how often you looked at your hands, and how weird it was to use someone else's. 

And that was the thing: it kept on happening, even after that first time. Not often. But some mornings, Sanghyuk would wake in a different bed, the smell of a spent candle in the room, staring at hands that weren’t his.

Sanghyuk rolled out of bed and straggled to the bathroom, bumping into the doorframe. He pulled the door open. Hongbin poked his head out of his closet, blearily squinting at him. Oh. Wrong room. 

“Go shower and quit wearing Hakyeon’s body like a creepy flesh suit,” Hongbin said, turning back to his closetful of plaid shirts. It was comforting that the other members could tell the difference. 

“You’re a creepy flesh suit.” Not the best retort, but it was early.

Hakyeon’s body was slower to wake up in the morning than his own. Sanghyuk knew that Hakyeon was a morning person, but his body didn’t snap awake the way that Sanghyuk’s own did. In the first few minutes of waking, Hakyeon’s body was loose, his awareness blurred at the edges—different from the instant sharpness that Sanghyuk usually got when he woke up. 

Ever since debut, Hakyeon had always the one to wake them up in the mornings, tugging at their wrists to pull them out of bed and to a schedule. Sanghyuk usually never saw him like this, his frame lax with sleep, all his careful poise still tucked away and slowly emerging as he awoke.

“Again?” Hakyeon sighed, scrubbing his hand back through his—well, Sanghyuk’s hair. “Okay, give me my body back.”

Hakyeon leaned down and kissed him, quick and perfunctory. Warm pressure on his lips, just for a moment, before Sanghyuk blinked and found himself taller again. He stumbled, disoriented for a moment. Hakyeon caught him underneath the elbows. 

“There. Go take a shower, I didn’t get the chance to do that yet, and we have to leave in twenty.”

The first time, it had taken a good two weeks before they had figured out how to switch back. Two weeks of awkward dancing and terrible impressions of each other and everyone frantically trying to cover for the fact that their maknae kept leading the group greeting, until—well, awkward variety show circumstances jolted them back into their bodies, leaving them reeling and disoriented. Kissing Hakyeon was a weirdly normal thing, now.

—

There were some differences that Sanghyuk noticed right away when he was in Hakyeon's body. But there were other things that took awhile. Hakyeon's body was flexible in different directions. When Sanghyuk bent over, he could touch his toes without a problem—something that had taken a lot of work for him to be able to do. He had to wear a layer more than he was used to, his body running a little colder. His emotions felt closer to the surface when he was in Hakyeon's body, a little more intense.

There were other things, like the way that Hakyeon’s body knew certain dance routines that he didn’t. Or the way that Hakyeon’s hands reached for the first step of his skin care routine when he stood in front of the bathroom mirror at the end of the day, tired and not paying much attention. Little everyday things worn smooth into neural pathways.

By the eighth time, it was maybe even weirder that the differences felt familiar, like the way that Hakyeon’s body sometimes just felt older. Sanghyuk could tell when Hakyeon hadn’t had a good night’s sleep.

In the hallway, Hakyeon leaned in to switch them back, but Sanghyuk ducked away.

“What are you playing at, Han Sanghyuk. We have a practice in two hours, and I kind of need my body for that,” Hakyeon groused. 

“I don’t know, it’s kinda comfy. I’m settling in. Maybe I’ll go and get my hair cut today after our schedule. Something that isn’t a bowl cut, for once. Maybe I’ll shave it.”

Hakyeon’s eyes narrowed. Seeing Hakyeon’s expressions on his own face was still hilarious. A little uncanny, too, as if his reflection in the bathroom mirror suddenly didn’t match the pull of his facial muscles. 

“Okay, okay. No hair-shaving.”

“That’s right.” Hakyeon nodded, satisfied that his will was imposed on the situation. 

Sanghyuk ducked away again when Hakyeon leaned down to try to switch them. Hakyeon hit his neck. Ow. 

“Seriously, we don’t have time for this.”

“But you’re tired, right?” Sanghyuk didn’t need to ask, really—he could feel his arms weighed down, an ache pulsing behind his eyes. Besides, he was getting pretty good at impersonating Hakyeon.

Hakyeon looked confused for a second. His expression slowly shifted to gleeful. “Hyukkie. Are you offering this old hyung the opportunity to spend more time with your youthful energetic body out of the kindness of your heart?”

“Oh my god, never mind,” Sanghyuk moaned. He darted in and kissed Hakyeon’s laughing mouth.

It wasn’t as if being in Hakyeon’s body was difficult or anything. But it didn’t feel quite right.

And even though they already lived in each other's pockets, and it seemed invasive, somehow. Things like the way that Hakyeon's body knew the pattern of the code to his phone. Sanghyuk found himself staring at Hakyeon’s messages when his fingers flicked the phone open on a reflex in the car. He shut off the screen. 

It wasn't that Hakyeon was particularly secretive, but he tended to keep his troubles to himself or preferred going to Wonshik with his burdens. When Sanghyuk woke up in Hakyeon’s bed, he could see Hakyeon's diaries lined up behind his bed, the same black cover going all the way back to debut and before. It wasn't that Sanghyuk wanted to snoop. He was just curious. For all that Hakyeon showed his emotions easily, there was still a part of him that was opaque, unknowable. 

Sometimes, with older hyungs or with parents, you forgot that they existed as people long before you did. As you got older, they became people, people with flaws and history and desires, things you just hadn’t thought to ask before then. Five years in, Hakyeon trusted them more, maybe felt more open to sharing his burdens with all of them. But this was a weird way to know him.

It was strange that Sanghyuk now knew little things about Hakyeon by inhabiting his body: that he probably liked his showers scalding hot, that his back got sore in the mornings if he didn’t sleep on his back, that he liked the smell of freshly-washed sheets. And Hakyeon probably now knew things about him, too, that he had never thought to tell. 

That night, Sanghyuk didn’t go to bed until four because he was fifty links and a couple of academic publications deep into memory research. Eventually, Wonshik threw a pillow at him from across the room and rumbled at him to go to sleep already, or he would be really grumpy in the morning and they all would suffer for it. Which was really rich coming from Wonshik. Sanghyuk lay awake for a long time after that, wondering.

“Is it weird that I don’t have your memories when I’m in your body? Like. Technically I guess I have your brain.”

Hakyeon stopped typing on his phone, then shook his head. “Don’t think about it too hard.”

“But seriously. And isn’t it weird that you can’t remember what I did while I was in your body? Because the process of memory creation—”

Hakyeon shot him a glance from across the room, looking annoyed. “This isn’t helping.” 

—

One day, Sanghyuk woke up. He couldn't breathe. The covers were twisted around his chest. He kicked out of them, spilled out of bed. He didn’t know where he was.

He was in a hotel room. He had seen enough of them to tell that much. But all hotel rooms looked the same, and he hadn't gone to sleep in a hotel room, and he didn't know where he was. The carpet was the same scratchy hotel carpet as everywhere. His phone. Maybe his phone would tell him. 

It wasn't plugged in the wall, where he usually put it. 

He pressed his face into his hands. No. Hakyeon’s hands, tanned and capable. Now, more than ever, he didn’t feel like he suited them, didn’t feel capable at all right now.

Hakyeon usually plugged his phone in an outlet further from the bed to force himself to get up. Yeah. Yeah, okay, there it was. He swiped Hakyeon’s phone open and pulled open the drapes on the window, pressing his cheek to the window. The scattering of city lights didn’t tell him anything.

Hakyeon answered on the first ring. 

“Ah, fuck,” Hakyeon said. He sounded tired.

“Hyung,” Sanghyuk said. “Where, where am I?”

He sounded fucking desperate, young, and he hated it.

“You’re in Japan. I have that fanmeet, remember. Breathe, Hyukkie. Are you okay?” It was his own voice, except it wasn’t his voice. They heard themselves talk on recordings so often, but Sanghyuk still couldn’t let go of that initial surprise of hearing himself. Thinner, like hearing a recording of himself, with the neat precision of Hakyeon using his vocal cords. 

It didn’t sound like Hakyeon, and all he wanted right now was Hakyeon telling him that it was okay.

“I’m fine,” Sanghyuk said.

A long silence at the other end. The hissing of the line. Hakyeon probably didn’t believe him. 

“Okay, Hyukkie. I just have one schedule today, that fanmeeting, okay? Be kind to the fans and talk a lot about how handsome I am. It’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” Sanghyuk swallowed. He pressed his cheek harder to the window. If he really looked, he could maybe see the way that the city lights looked like what he had seen of Japan. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“It's your fanmeeting.” And Hakyeon always loved going to Japan. He could wander around for ages, finding neat little alleys with cats sunning themselves in the sunshine casting through the telephone wires. 

“You’ll tell me all about it and how wonderful they think I am.” 

Sanghyuk snorted. He flopped on the bed and pushed his face into the pillow. “I’m really tired of this.”

“I know,” Hakyeon said, soothing. “I know.”

When Sanghyuk stepped out of the airport’s baggage area a week later, Hakyeon was there holding a sign. There were a couple of fansite masters that Sanghyuk recognized as his own orbiting around him with their cameras. Hakyeon smiled and waved. Sanghyuk took a few steps forward and toppled into him, tucking his face into Hakyeon’s neck. Hakyeon's arms closed around him, firm and loving in their grasp, and Sanghyuk felt like he could breathe in the first time in days. 

“Thanks for sending me those photos,” Hakyeon said, steering him through the crowd and to the car. 

Sanghyuk usually didn’t take that many photos when he was on a trip. But this time, he had sent photos of everything to Hakyeon: his bento lunch, the metro, the fans. Trying to fill in memories Hakyeon should have, maybe.

“Did it go well?” Hakyeon’s tone was light, but it seemed off, too. Once they were in the car and the windows were up, Hakyeon checked that the manager wasn’t watching, and then kissed Sanghyuk, landing him back in his own body. His legs felt kind of sore, like he had been doing a lot of dancing.

“Yeah, it went fine.”

“Good. Okay, hyung will buy you a supper for being so good at impersonating someone far cooler than you.”

Sanghyuk ducked his head, grinning. It was strange to say that he had missed Hakyeon when he had seen Hakyeon’s face in the mirror every morning this week, but there it was.

—

A week later, Sanghyuk blinked, and instead of sitting in a movie theatre, he was on the dorm couch, staring at black lines of type against the page. He groaned. He was out at a movie, and now he would have to ask Hakyeon if it was worth seeing. 

“Hyung?” Wonshik said over his book. Sanghyuk turned to him. “Is there something wrong?” 

Wonshik was usually really perceptive, especially when it came to Hakyeon. And Wonshik knew Sanghyuk, knew him better than a whole lot of people. The idea that Wonshik couldn't tell which of them he was—it stung, somehow. 

“It’s Sanghyuk.”

Wonshik's face fell. “Ah, shit. Sorry, Hyukkie. Should I call Hakyeon-hyung and tell him to come home?”

Sanghyuk swallowed. “Nah. It’s fine.”

Wonshik looked at him. “If you’re sure.”

—

The stage lights were always hot, but the summer didn’t help. A bead of sweat chased into Sanghyuk’s collar and down the hollow of his back as he moved into formation, counted down to his line, and—the single bead of sweat was gone, and the fan chanting was coming from a different direction, and—

“Hyung—” Hongbin hissed at him as his feet tangled and he bumped into Hongbin’s shoulder. Hongbin’s eyes went wide. Sanghyuk almost wanted to laugh, because it seemed like it was taking all his energy not to swear while they were miked up. 

He caught Hakyeon’s eyes from across the stage. His eyes were wide, panicked. 

They got through it, somehow. With the stage lights, they couldn’t see the fans, but when Sanghyuk took out his in-ear, he could hear a pitched murmur, not excitement but confusion. When they stumbled offstage, Wonshik turned to him and opened his mouth, his eyes concerned.

Hakyeon dragged him off and yanked him into a bathroom, breathing hard, and smashed their lips together. Sanghyuk stumbled when Hakyeon let him go, his body back to normal. Some version of normal. Hakyeon was pacing back and forth in the bathroom, his stage shoes squeaking on the tile. His eyes kept flicking to the mirrors. 

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it,” Sanghyuk said. “Fuck.”

Hakyeon didn’t answer. 

“It’s going to be fine,” Hakyeon said, at last. “We’ll spend some time in the studio to make sure we’re good with each other’s parts. It’s doable.”

Sanghyuk already felt so fucking tired. It sounded exhausting, but Sanghyuk knew they had to do it. 

They switched twice while they were in the studio running through parts. Hakyeon kept calling for another run-through. Maybe if they were tired enough, their bodies wouldn’t have the energy to switch. They lay in the studio afterwards, sprawled on the smooth wooden floor, and Sanghyuk felt anchored only by the ache in his muscles, could feel his torso expanding and dropping as he breathed.

—

They switched again when they came back to the dorm after a schedule. One second, Sanghyuk was brushing his teeth, and the next, he was in Hakyeon’s room, staring at his hands. He kind of wanted to cry. 

When Hakyeon came in, he looked exhausted. Sanghyuk’s body fitted him like a too-big suit hanging loosely on his shoulders. He kissed Sanghyuk. 

It lasted about two seconds. As soon as Sanghyuk blinked, his hands were tanned again. Like a rubber band snapping back into place.

He looked up at Hakyeon, because he wanted Hakyeon to fix this, to know what to do. He felt fucking helpless.

“Why isn’t it working,” Hakyeon said. It was the voice that Hakyeon used when he was trying to be calm and not to panic. There was never anything more frightening than Hakyeon at a loss. Hakyeon emotional, Hakyeon angry, that he knew. That, he could deal with. But Hakyeon lost, that he didn’t know what to do with.

Hakyeon kissed him again. This time, it caught. Hakyeon put his hands to his own face, first his fingertips and then his entire palms pressed against his skin, fingers tight together as if to keep himself from spilling out between the gaps. 

Sanghyuk reached out. Hakyeon caught his hands before he could draw them back. His palms touched Hakyeon’s warm neck, Hakyeon’s pulse thudding against his thumb. His hair was damp with sweat at his nape. 

Hakyeon’s eyes flickered up to his, searching his face for something. Leaned forward to kiss him: a short, perfunctory kiss, the kind he usually used to switch them back. Sanghyuk felt as though his own limbs didn't belong to him, tried to anchor himself to the feeling of Hakyeon’s hands passing through his hair. Kissed Hakyeon again, again, again, kisses like gasping breaths. 

“You’re okay. We’re okay,” he babbled.

“Keep me here.” Hakyeon’s voice. His voice. No, Hakyeon’s voice: Sanghyuk could feel the vibration in Hakyeon’s throat against his palms. 

When Hakyeon drew him closer, Sanghyuk slipped his hands under Hakyeon’s shirt, feeling his hot skin. Tried to tell him with his hands against his skin: this is your body, and this is mine. This is your skin, your muscles, your lips, your fingers. 

Afterwards, Hakyeon kept close to him. It was almost uncomfortably hot with both of them under the covers together, but Sanghyuk didn’t want to let go.

—

This is you, Sanghyuk now reminded Hakyeon, even on the days when they had their own bodies. It didn’t always work. Sanghyuk sometimes forgot that he was in the wrong body, Taekwoon looking at him askance, reminding him with a nudge when he fanned his face like Hakyeon did. His own hands looked foreign to him, sometimes. He wore more rings, now, the way Hakyeon did, because his fingers felt too light without them.

—

And one day: it stopped, like a summer storm. It was hard to say when, exactly. Hakyeon lifted a page from the kitchen calendar, his eyebrows raising when he said that it had been a month. 

Sanghyuk let out a long breath, one he didn't realize he had been holding, as if the tautness in his lungs would keep him from floating away. 

Sometimes, Sanghyuk still woke in the middle of the night, expecting to be somewhere else. His door would creak open a few seconds later, and Hakyeon would sneak in, carefully closing the door behind him. He crowded close to Sanghyuk under the covers and wrapped his arms around him, saying that his bed smelled wrong, and Sanghyuk didn’t refuse him. Sanghyuk still wore more rings than he usually did, stole some of Hakyeon's clothes, even though they were way too small for him, because he wanted the soft fabrics that Hakyeon usually wore. 

It took him a few more weeks to kiss Hakyeon again. Afraid, somehow, that the fuzzy boundaries of his body would spill over. 

But in the dark of their apartment stairwell, Hakyeon smiled against his lips, and Sanghyuk felt giddy relief crest in his chest that they could have this, maybe. That he could have Hakyeon's body tucked into his, lithe and familiar, a home with firm shores.


End file.
